Six Scars
by simply.kaleidoscope
Summary: Not counting the obvious one, Sam has six scars on his hands.


Not counting the obvious one, Sam has six scars on his hands.

He doesn't remember getting most of them. The majority are so small that they could be from any number of slip-ups or mistakes.

The one on his knuckle is from the first time he tried to sharpen a knife. Dean had laughed at him and called him an idiot and John had rolled his eyes once Sam began throwing punches to defend his wounded pride.

The way his right pinky bends from being broken one too many times is not technically a scar, but Sam counts it as such.

He's not positive, but he's pretty sure that the one on the heel of his palm, just above his wrist, is from a bad fight with a werewolf when he was seventeen. Most of that fight was fuzzy after he got slammed into a tree, so he'll never really be sure.

The rest of them, a mystery. Unexplainable scars are an occupational hazard, after all.

He's pretty sure he'll have another one now.

"Jesus, Sam!" Dean swooped over to pull the knife out of his hand. "Can't you even cut an onion right?" A moment later, he registered what he said and blanched. Dean had been hyper-sensitive about whatever he said to Sam after the third trial.

"My hand slipped," Sam said before Dean could start backtracking and try to explain that he hadn't meant it that way, not really. Sam had heard that speech four times in the past two days and he wasn't really up for a fifth.

"Get that cleaned up," Dean said and picked up the cutting board, presumably to finish the job more efficiently and just overall _better_ so he could get on with making dinner.

"All right," Sam said, looking at the slice on his thumb with detached interest. But instead of listening to his older brother's instructions, Sam just sat and observed.

Sam doesn't know how many scars Dean had on his hands. Not as many as Sam, he knows that for sure. When Castiel dragged Dean back to Earth after the worst year of Sam's life, he was clean and unblemished, spare the print on his shoulder. Four years is plenty of time to accumulate new nicks and cuts, but Dean was always careful with a knife in a way that Sam was not.

Dean cut the onion with deft skill that left Sam wondering where he actually learned to cook. Certainly not anytime Sam was there. While he may have idolized Dean's culinary skills when they were children, long gone are the days where spaghetti-o's and cold cereal are fine dining.

_When he was with Lisa_, he realized with a jolt. And it's so obvious, because clearly that was the only time Dean would have to sit and learn skills that aren't pure violence. Back when Sam had left him alone to mourn indefinitely and—

No. He promised Dean he wouldn't dwell and he was giving that an honest effort.

"You're bleeding."

Sam looked up to see Castiel hovering over him, a half-concerned expression on his face.

"It's nothing." Sam waved his hand and Cas nodded because he has been privy to moments where Sam was breadths away from death, so if anyone knows that this injury was nothing, it would be Cas.

A heavy silence settled between the two of them so Sam clears his throat and Cas jerks his gaze away from where it had settled across the kitchen.

"I think Dean needs help with dinner," Sam said, and that is about as subtle as he can be around these two. Cas didn't even spare a second glance for Sam, he just made his way towards Dean in that half-wary way that has characterized everything he did since the fall.

Sam wondered when Cas will realize that, among the Winchester family, there is no mistake too grave to be forgiven.

And there is that train of thought again, that guilt. Sam shook it off and watched Dean instead.

There was a brief awkward moment where Cas murmured something that Sam couldn't catch and Dean looked startled, but everything soothed itself over as it usually did between the two of them, easy as breathing.

Sam laughed to himself, not sure if they were more oblivious to their own feelings or to each others.

He watched as Dean slapped Cas' back in a good-natured kind of way and led him with his hand on Cas' shoulder over to the cutting board. Dean's hands were gentle as he showed Cas the best way to cut a bun, slice a tomato, make a hamburger pattie. Sam hated the twinge of jealousy that rose up as he watched the pair, but he was unable to prevent it.

He wasn't jealous of Cas. Dean had already tried to teach Sam all of these essentials months ago, before they both decided that it would be best if Sam gave up completely on that endeavor.

No, this irrational, _stupid_ jealousy came up because of Dean.

Because Dean's hands were just as capable of hurt and torture and death as Sam's, but there were these times where he could use them to be gentle and domestic. Even when he was with Amelia, Sam knew that he clung too tightly and let go too quickly. He was never able to master an easy brush of knuckles against someone else's forearm that Dean was so effectively demonstrating on Castiel right now.

And maybe this was the guilt that Dean warned him against, but Sam knew that these hands, six scars and crooked pinky and all, were the hands of someone who would drink demon blood until turning his back on his family and everything they stood for seemed like a good idea, the hands of a man who would drag his half-brother to hell with him and then leave him there.

Because Sam knows what self-loathing is, and it is not self-loathing to say that his hands are the ones that have carried the apocalypse over and over again.


End file.
